Spaceflight Vol 59 No 05 – May 2017

NASA’s latest women astronautsDr Neil Da Costa begins our special selection of features about women in space with a review of the four women astronauts selected in 2013 but who became eligible for flight assignment in 2015. They were part of the first group chosen by NASA equally divided in number between men and women.

German Female Astronaut InitiativeTony Quine tracks the continuing activity to find a single candidate for sending a German woman astronaut to space, with the six finalists now waiting for the next phase of the competition.

Hidden FiguresRobin Tucker reports on the film “Hidden Figures” and the aspirational use of the story about African-American women in NASA’s Mercury programme. Used by 20th Century Fox to encourage more girls to select STEM subjects for school and university, Robin shows how simulating stories such as this can have a very real motivational effect.

Speedmaster for space!Philip Corneille makes a welcome return to Spaceflight, bringing us the fascinating story of Omega, space-rated watches and the unique, but largely ignored part they play in the story of the Mercury, Gemini and Apollo mis-sions.

UK Space on the UpCo-founder of Nebula Sciences Ltd, Samuel Harrison provides an insightful reflection on the progress being made to place the UK at the very centre of international space activities through its science and engineering teams across the country.